Friday, May 18, 2007

John Vandevelde and Blythe Leszkay, of Lightfoot Vandevelde Sadowsky Crouchley Rutherford & Levine in Los Angeles, attorneys for Will Geoghegan, issued the following statement on behalf of Mr. Geoghegan:

I apologize to Greg LeMond and his family for the distress I caused by my call. I also apologize to the arbitration panel and to Floyd Landis and his legal team for the distraction. I have been very angry about how unfair this whole proceeding is to Floyd, a great friend and a greater champion, and stupidly tried to take out my anger on Greg. I acted on my own, impulsively, after a beer or two. I never thought about keeping Greg from testifying. If I had, I would have concluded that since Greg is such a fierce competitor my stunt would likely make him more resolved to testify. What I did was wrong and very unfair to Greg. I am very sorry about and embarrassed by my conduct.

Seems like anytime something goes wrong with the Landis people, the alcohol excuse comes out....A couple of beers is a worthless excuse. Just like a couple of shots of Jack Daniels was a bad excuse for Floyd. He should have said he was sorry, without any excuses embedded into it. Geoghegan is a worthless bum.

I don't expect the courts will care whether he was blind drunk or sipping a Shirley Temple: intimidating a witness is illegal and doing so in this manner is, well, hors catégorie. Not to mention enormously destructive to Landis.

Thanks, TBV, for the great coverage. We all owe you. T, for me, is on the wane, but keep up the V.

Too little, too late. Blaming beer not acceptable - shows that he doesn't take the apology seriously - too lighthearted.And yet more lawyers involved - great just what the world needs.

Just want to add praise and support to the guys writing TBV - you are doing an incredible service - maybe a Pulitzer is in order. Seldom, in this day and age, do we just get such straight reporting and with the video link constantly down/oversubscribed you are often the only avenue to following this whole cluster.

"I don't expect the courts will care whether he was blind drunk or sipping a Shirley Temple: intimidating a witness is illegal and doing so in this manner is, well, hors catégorie. Not to mention enormously destructive to Landis."

I think it would be interesting to ponder exactly what American cycling fans would be saying right now if a FRENCH cyclist won the Tour, was accused by an anti-doping agency of doping, and it was then revealed that one of his entourage had attempted to intimidate GREG LEMOND by taunting him about his sexual abuse. Somehow, I don't think people would be suggesting that we accept the apology and just move on.

Personally, I don't know whether Landis is guilty, but this incident does say a lot about what some people will do to win...

WG's statement may not be worth much, but it is worth something. It is a step in the right direction. I learned long ago that most people aren't very good at apologizing, and you really need to accept it when they try.

Floyd should have already made a statement condemning WG's conduct (firing him is not good enough) and should have already said something about LeMond's testimony. Here's my suggestion:

"To the larger cycling community: The events at my hearing on Thursday were distressing in many ways, personally and legally. There has been animosity between Greg LeMond and me in the past. I apologize for my part of that. Greg was a great cyclist and I hope the future allows for greater understanding between us. I and my legal and professional team condemn without qualification any attempt to interfere with the testimony of any witness. As announced yesterday I have terminated all connection between myself and WG. I hope that we can now return to focus on the substantive issues of my hearing, so that I can continue to try to demonstrate that I won the 2006 Tour de France fair and clean, without the assistance of performance enhancing drugs."

Why has he not yet made some such statement?

BTW: although I do not have much sympathy for this point of view, it is true that in the United States, being drunk is a partial excuse for doing horrible things, as is evidenced by the often minimal punishment received by people who kill people while driving drunk.

People seem to keep sidestepping the fact that Landis admitted his guilt to Lemond. Clearly, Geohagen knew this and this is why he attempted to intimidate Lemond from testifying. I'm sure Landis' defense team wasn't involved, but I wonder if Landis himself was involved in any way in trying to intimidate Lemond.

I asked Michael Henson earlier this morning whether there would be a statement. He tells me that they're under a gag order, and not allowed to comment on the proceedings, which includes yesterday's fireworks.

Whoah! Anonymous: it does not take a stretch of the imagination to infer threat/intimidation when someone calls you on the phone pretending to be your sexually-abusing uncle the day before you are scheduled to testify: "This is your uncle Ron AND I'M GOING TO BE THERE TOMORROW."

I don't care what you think about Landis's guilt: if you try to spin this disgraceful (and possibly illegal) episode against Lemond, your priorities are really really screwed up.

How pathetic. Even with legal counsel he can't craft a compelling statement. Excuses, excuses . . . a beer or two, the unfairness of the proceedings . . . whatever happened to taking responsibility for committing a sleazy and morally reprehensible act?

So, there's the one scenario where Landis did cheat, admitted it to Greg Lemond, and threatened him with blackmail over the internet. Then his manager lost his temper after "a few beers" and called Lemond threatening him. Lemond is the victim, and Floyd is the liar.

Then there's another scenario, where Lemond (in the pocket of someone powerful for unknown reasons)is attempting to convince Floyd to admit to doping, using a technique used the world over by cult recruiters and intelligence agents: the old "I'll confess to something horrible - now it's your turn..." technique. If Floyd didn't dope, he would have answered that he didn't do it. If Lemond wants to set him up, he's already generated his document for the court - a statement that shows he spoke with Floyd over the phone - not a recording of the conversation, just some physical proof that they talked. Now he can say whatever he wants about Floyd - heck, Lemond was never found guilty of doping, he must be truthful, right? Then, simply send an e-mail to some blog or other on behalf of Floyd and voila! (Or, just say something in the phone conversation that really makes Floyd angry and gets him to do something stupid like the above e-mail). Next, whomever hired Lemond hires Geoghegan, plants him on Landis' team, and discredits him. Corporate and government agents have done these things time and time again. In this scenario, Landis is the victim and Lemond is the liar.

It'll be interesting to see if Geoghegan is in any legal trouble after all this. It's gonna look very suspicious if Lemond drops the charges...

By the way, I don't know which scenario seems more realistic. Certainly calling from his own cell phone makes the whole thing look like a setup, but then again the guy could just be an idiot...

The more I follow this, the more I'm bewildered by all the totally blind support for Landis. I can understand someone's motivation for doping and lying about it, which I think the evidence does seem to show as to Landis, but why the total allegence to him that so many people have, as evidenced by trying to make Lemond the bad guy here? What Lemond did was courageous. I also have to say I think the press has also been very pro Landis, which I don't understand, other than that the Landis camp were the only ones who would talk to the press.

Michael Henson emailed me some comments after I'd inquired as to whether there would be a statement. No statement due to gag order. But what he did tell me about Will's non-connection to the FFF can be found here.

Total Poindexter Website Prize: to the fabulous geniuses over at trustbutverify, who not only are perhaps the most impassioned defenders of Floyd Landis' virtue beyond only the boy himself, but actually seem to understand the detailed scientific arguments they put out that the rest of us (well, me) are too stupid to even coherently summarize. Floyd, you better be innocent, or you owe these folks a *major* freakin' apology! (racejunkie)

"Who does awards for blogs? I sense a nomination is in order." (Carlton Reid, of BikeBiz)

"Hands-down champion of full-and I mean full-coverage of this hearing is the blog Trust But Verify. You'll have to have excellent background knowledge of the issues, and wade through page after page of detail to get to anything interesting, but it's raw and unfiltered and all there. The guy who runs the site, a cycling fan from Northern California, began casually providing a clearinghouse for Landis case news nearly 10 months ago, and now he has the haunted look of a man whose life has been hijacked and wants it back. (Loren Mooney, co-author of Positively False, at Bicycling)

"if you want the latest news on the Floyd Landis case, Trust but Verify is the go-to site. The author is biased in favor of Floyd (so am I) but the reporting is neutral and comprehensive." (12string musings)

About Me

About Us (Admissions)

TBV is personally biased towards Floyd. I think it'll be a better world if he proves his innocence, and some inquisitors meet their own just ends. Interspersed between daily link roundups are pieces of commentary slanted towards understanding what will prove innocence in the discipline proceeding, and what will rehabilitate his reputation in the public eye. Make of them what you will. Agreement with me is not required, though I am right.